Growth in Skilled Vacancies Following September Fall

Job
vacancies advertised online increased in October following a
fall in September, according to the latest Jobs Online report from the
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The trend
in skilled vacancies has been flat since June 2012, although
there has been some variation from month to month. The
latest Household Labour Force Survey results showed weak
growth in employment indicating that the labour market is
still facing significant challenges.

The latest results
show that skilled vacancies increased by 5.6 percent in
October and total online job vacancies increased by 4.7 per
cent compared to September.

Skilled job vacancies were up
in the country’s main centres with the strongest growth
for the month in Auckland (up by 5.4 percent), followed by
Wellington (up by 5.1 percent) and Canterbury (up by 5.0
percent).

Over the last 12 months, overall growth in
skilled vacancies in Canterbury has been strong (up by 36.5
percent), while growth in Auckland and Wellington has been
relatively stable.

The continued growth in Canterbury has
been driven by the demand for skilled workers in the
construction and engineering industry (up by 108.4 percent)
and hospitality and tourism (up by 59.1 percent).

“The
strong growth in job vacancies in the construction and
engineering industry shows that the Canterbury rebuild
continues to drive demand for labour in the region,” says
the Ministry’s General Manager of the Labour and
Immigration Research Centre, Vasantha Krishnan.

Growth in
online job vacancies has been positive over the past 12
months to October, with skilled job vacancies increasing by
14.2 percent and total job vacancies up by 15.0 percent.

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